200 ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. JBOOX Y 



analytics; for it is rather loaded with, superfluities than defi- 

 cient.® 



We divide the doctrine of confutations into three parts ; 

 viz., 1. The confutation of sophisms ; 2. The confutation of 

 interpretation ; and 3. The confutation of images or idols. 

 Tlie doctrine of the confutation of sophisms is extremely 

 useful : for although a gross kind of fallacy is not improperly 

 compared, by Seneca, to the tricks of jugglers/ where we 

 know not by what means the things are performed, but are 

 well assured they are not as they appear to be, yet the more 

 Bubtile sophisms not only supply occasions of answer, but 

 also in reality confound the judgment. Tliis part concerning 

 the confutation of sophisms is, in precept, excellently treated 

 by Aristotle, but still better by Plato, in example ; not only 

 in the persons of the ancient sophists, Gorgias, Hippias, 

 Protagoras, Euthydemus, &c., but even in the person of 

 Socrates himself. » who, always professing to affirm nothing, 

 but to confute what was produced by others, has ingeniously 

 expressed the several forms of objections, fallacies, and con- 

 stations. Therefore in this part we find no deficiency, but 

 only observe by the way, that though we place the true 

 and principal use of this doctrine in the confutation of 

 sophisms, yet it is plain that its degenerate and corrupt 

 use tends to the raising of cavils and contradictions, by 

 means of those sophisms themselves ; which kind of faculty is 

 highly esteemed, and has no small uses, though it is a good 

 distinction made between the orator and the sophist, that 

 the former excels in swiftness, as the greyhound, the other 

 in the turn, as the hare. 



With regard to the confutations of interpretation, we 

 must here repeat what was formerly said of the transcen- 

 dental and adventitious conditions of beings, such as greater, 

 less, whole, parts, motion, rest, &c. For the different way 

 of considering these things, which is either physically or 

 logically, must be remembered.^ The physical treatment of 



• Upon the subject of analytic?, see Weigelius in his '* Analysis 

 Aristotelica, ex Euclide restituta;" and Morhof in his ^'Polyhistor," 

 torn. i. lib. ii. c. 7, de Methodis variis. 



* Epist. 45, c. 7. >f See the opening of the Tlieietetus. 



^ He might have added, mathematically, as greater and .ess hav« 

 ditferent signiiicatioDS in arithmetic and algebra. £d. 



